Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Has anyone tried the newer design landing gear for the Page Gee Bee? I love flying the gee Bee but I am tired of fixing the tail due to nose over. I can't emagin trying to land on grass. Any help would be apprecaited.

Wormy J

My Feedback: (6)

Which Gee Bee do you have? R-1 or the Z.
I just flew my "Z" for the first time the day before yeterday off grass. I was so worryed about it ground looping on take off and flipping on landing too. All I can say is that looks can be deciving. It taxies great, tracks great on take off, I even let th tail come up and rolled on the mains awhile. Landing was so smooth, touched down on the mains with the tail low, no problems on roll out. Now I only have the one flight on it and am going to a contest this weekend and am planning on getting some more flight time off of asphalt. We will see how that goes.

My thoughts from previous planes that I used on the Gee Bee were to keeep the weight low in the plane, make sure the pants don't bind on the wheels, they should spin freely too, 30% expo on the rudder, and carry power when landing. I think most of the landing problems occur when the plane slows too much ( not stalled but just slow). My Yellow Spit would bounce and wobble badly if I tried to treee point it, wheel landings with a little more speed were as smooth as silk.

I am interested in what prop / engine your using. I have a new Satio .65 with APC 13-6

Jeremy

Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Jermy
I have the Z also, but it is the older design on the LG. Its not so mush on landing as it is on the roll out that it wants to nose over. you can't get on the elev fast enough to stop it. And I do land it with power. I have moved the wheel forward and it does help some. I have open up the wheel pants to give it more room. but that didn't help.
I have an os 91 four stroke with a 15-6 zinger. and it flys it fine . It will knife edge with the best of them.

BykrDan

I'm just now covering a "Z" from the old plans - I have the new plans with the newer gear also. Here's what I did with the gear:

I used the rear arm from the new design (fewer bends, and the spring-loop is eliminated), but the main arm is still the same length as the original. So, to answer your question, no - my wheels are still in the same relative position as the old plans show.

But I do like the design of the new gear - both the forward and rearward arms now run along the underside of the wing for support.

Can you move CG lower? I'm going to try to keep all the weight in mine near the bottom as much as possible. Or, dare I say, do you have room to move it back a little?

Dan.

Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Dan
Would you have a picture of the bottom wing with the new gear installed that you could send allong. Thanks

Adrian Page

I'm looking into functional oleo struts for my Gee Bee kits. I have a sample set to try in my new 1/4 scale R2 prototype. (It should be ready to test out in about a month). They are beautifully made and only weigh 4 oz. each. The low weight is because they are made from aluminum. The other advantage to the struts is that the wheel pant can travel up and down with the wheel like it did on the full scale planes. If it works out I'll get some made for the smaller planes.
Something I noticed about the wheel pants is that in really thick, lush grass the rear part of the pant is lifted by the thick grass at low speeds and can help to nose over the plane. It was driving me nuts because I would nail the landing and as the plane just about came to rest it would nose over in slow motion. I checked the clearance from the bottom of the pant to the ground and it was only about 1/2 an inch. I had glued them on wrong. After I redid them I had about an inch of clearance at the back of the pant and the problem went away. This was on an R2 but I would assume the Z would be affected the same way.
I have the 1 inch lower landing gear on my Z at the moment and it makes quite a difference too. Also, if you can stand to run your engines inverted it will help by lowering the CG a bit.

Adrian

BykrDan

Let me see if I can get hooked up with a camera within the next week. You must promise not to rip on my covering job :^) This is my first build.

I must say, I'm rather pleased with the way the gear turned out. It may well be the best part of my plane!

Say, in the meantime, I have a question for you all; I'd like to put a tailwheel on my "Z", but I'm having a time figuring out how to mount it. I'd as soon not just fasten it to the bottom of the rudder (that just sounds like it spells trouble) and the bottom of the round fuse terminates in a single stringer - not much for a tailwheel or bracket to hang on to.

Has anyone else done this? I guess my other option would be to somehow chop out the last bit of that bottom stringer, and build up a platform from the frame (seems like a lot of work, though).

Thanks,
Dan.

Strat2003

My Feedback: (1)

Adrian, it's great to hear that I'm not the only one to nail a landing then have the beast nose over just as it stops!

Just to make sure I have it right.where are you measuring the 1" clearance? At the axel line or at the back of the pant?

I love flying my R-2. It has an embarrasment of power with a YS 91fz and everyone thinks I'm some sort of hero to be able to fly it...I tell them it's not all that hard but nobody believes me!

Wish I'd thought of mounting the enine inverted when I built it.....

Scott

Adrian Page

Measure from the pointy end of the pant to the ground. Here is a picture of the gear leg on the Z.

Adrian Page

Here is a picture of the lowered pant in front of a regular height pant.

Adrian

Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Dan
On my <r> the tail wheel is mounted to the rudder, and I haven't had any trouble with the tail wheel at all. There is very little
weight in the tail section.
Adrain
Is the rear support on the LG the same on the R as it is with the Z? My rear strut is straight from the wing to the bottom of the LG. I didn't build my Gee Bee. I tried a set of struts on mine and it did land better but I had a problem with side movement. I didn't have the rear brace hooked up. On three landings it didn't nose over. Thanks

Adrian Page

Yes the gear is designed the same on both planes now. In fact they both use exactly the same wire parts.

Adrian
http://www.adrianpage.com

BykrDan

Thanks for the picture, Adrian; you've saved me the trouble of finding a camera.

Thanks for the tip about the tailwheel. I'm using some pretty hefty wire for the tail, and as I was pondering it last night, it occurred to me to make a channel and a hole in the rudder post, and I fit the tailwheel wire in the "L" shape made by the two, then glassed it over. I think it will look nice (I didn't want a big wad of wire showing on the bottom of my rudder).

Thanks,
Dan.

Wormy J

My Feedback: (6)

Well I flew off asphalt last weekend and was two for two having it flip on landing. Ouch! I flew the rest off of grass with no problems. Once it starts to bounce after it slows it just has a mind of its own and quickly ground loops. I do have a tail wheel on the end of the "tail skid".

I love how it flys and looks in the air. Just blows people away how slow it flys.

Jeremy